Climate change impacts and coastal planning in the Sydney greater metropolitan region

Abstract

Considerable information is available on the global impacts of coastal climate change. However, on a country‐scale, and even more importantly, on a local and community‐scale there exists significant data uncertainties and insufficiencies. The Sydney Greater Metropolitan Region (GMR) is no exception to this issue. Coastal climate change effects, such as sea level rise and the increase in storm magnitude, have the potential to progressively impact Sydney's growing coastal population and developments over the coming decades. The focus of this paper is on the implications of climate change to coastal developments within the Sydney GMR, the current planning, adaptation1 and mitigation2 responses, and the current implementation of these responses at the local government level. A survey was undertaken, by email, to the sixteen member councils of the Sydney Coastal Councils Group to establish the extent of information on coastal climate change impacts available at the local government level, and to determine how (or if) this information is utilised in planning and management responses for coastal developments. It was concluded that the majority of the seven coastal council authorities that responded have not readily considered the implications of coastal climate change impacts within their coastal zones. It is recommended that vulnerability and risk assessments should be undertaken within specific coastal regions to determine the effects that coastal climate change will have. Most importantly, appropriate adaptation and mitigation procedures need to be implemented at the local level, and there needs to be ongoing evaluation and readjustments of these procedures to ensure future changes are adequately planned.